“Everything is for sale.”

“Not everything.”

Crane smiled.

“I’ll give you twelve hundred dollars for the farm.”

Rowan nearly laughed.

Eight months earlier, the land had been appraised at six hundred.

“No.”

“Fifteen hundred.”

“No.”

“Two thousand.”

Her heart beat faster.

“Why?”

Crane’s smile disappeared.

“Why what?”

“Why do you want ten useless acres badly enough to triple their value?”

His face remained still.

But something behind his eyes changed.

“Sentimental reasons.”

“Yours?”

“Your grandfather and I were acquainted.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“It’s the only answer you require.”

Rowan stepped off the porch.

“I know about Northstar.”

For the first time, Silas Crane looked surprised.

Only slightly.

But Rowan saw it.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“I think you do.”

She told him about the freight record.

The label.

The geese.

The peat.

Crane listened without interruption.

Then he laughed softly.

“You have constructed a very dramatic story.”

“Is it wrong?”

“Yes.”

“Which part?”

“All of it.”

“Then why offer me two thousand dollars?”

“Because I dislike seeing a woman struggle.”

Rowan stared at him.

“If that were true, you would have offered me two thousand eight months ago.”

His expression hardened.

Then he stepped closer.

“You are playing with matters you don’t understand.”

“Then explain them.”

“I suggest you sell the property.”

“I suggest you leave.”

For several seconds, neither moved.

Then Crane nodded.

“As you wish.”

He walked toward his carriage.

Before climbing inside, he looked back.

“Geese are fragile creatures, Miss Mercer.”

Rowan’s fingers tightened around the porch rail.

“Farms too.”

Then he drove away.

The barn burned three nights later.

Rowan woke to screaming.

Not human screaming.

Geese.

Hundreds of them.

She ran barefoot outside.

Flames climbed the western wall of the barn.

“NO!”

She grabbed buckets.

Impossible.

The fire was already spreading through the dry rafters.

Rowan tore open the main doors.

Smoke poured outward.

The geese panicked.

She ran inside.

“Come on!”

The birds scattered.

Flames crawled overhead.

A beam cracked.

Rowan coughed violently.

She pushed birds toward the doors.

More escaped.

More followed.

Then part of the roof collapsed.

A burning board struck Rowan’s shoulder and threw her down.

She screamed.

The floor disappeared beneath smoke.

A hand caught her arm.

Elias.

He dragged her outside as the roof caved in.

They fell together in the mud.

Rowan tried to get up.

“The birds!”

“Stay down!”

“The birds!”

Most had escaped.

Not all.

By dawn, the barn was black ruin.

Twenty-nine geese were dead.

Rowan sat in the grass wrapped in a blanket while rain began to fall.

Sheriff Pike inspected the ashes.

Near the rear wall, he found an empty kerosene can.

He turned it in his hands.

“No accident.”

Rowan looked at Elias.

Neither spoke.

Everyone knew.

No one said Crane’s name.

Not yet.

Something changed after the fire.

Caldwell Flats stopped treating Rowan’s geese as a joke.

Amos Bell brought lumber.

Mrs. Talley brought food.

The Walsh brothers arrived with hammers.

Twelve farmers came the next morning.

Then twenty.

The new shelter went up in four days.

No one asked for payment.

Rowan stood beside the half-finished wall on the final afternoon and found Amos driving nails.

“You said they were dead.”

He grunted.

“I’ve been wrong before.”

“When?”

“1879.”

She laughed.

He pointed the hammer at her.

“Don’t make a habit of hearing that.”

When the shelter was finished, the town gathered inside it.

Someone brought cider.

Someone brought pies.

Children chased feathers.

For the first time since Rowan came to Caldwell Flats, she did not feel like an outsider.